Not Just Four Eyes and Brown Eyes
by holidaysfromreality
Summary: <html><head></head>Artie and Tina have insecurities beyond the t-shirts they originally made.</html>


**Yet another quickly written one-shot based on could've-happened-events from Born This Way. **

**This is unedited, so I apologize for any errors**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>When he actually held the shirt in his hands…he immediately regretted his decision. Artie hadn't so much taken the <em>Born This Way <em>part of the assignment into account as he had the overall moral of acceptance. It had taken him eight—nearly nine—years to even be just okay with had happened to him, let alone put it on a t-shirt. The first letter of the word, the C, stared at him as he set the crumbled up shirt in his lap, and he wondered if it was too late for him to go back to the choir room to ask for a do-over.

Tina was walking down the hallway toward the McKinley High School's front entrance when she saw Artie sitting in front of his locker. "Hey," she said, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

He looked up, "Oh. Hey."

"Are you heading out?"

He thought for a moment, "No, I'm…going to have my shirt made."

"You already made yours, didn't you?" she asked, "It's in your lap."

"I…I don't like it," he said finally and she snatched the shirt out of his hands, holding it out in front of her, her jaw dropping just a bit, "I know what you're thinking," he continued, "that I shouldn't be ashamed and I should just wear the damn shirt. But I wasn't born this way."

"Come with me," she said and he followed behind her, even if he didn't want to. Tina peeked into the choir room, finding it empty. She looked into the tag of the shirt in her hand and picked out a blank one in Artie's size, setting in on the printing press. "What do you want?"

"What?" he asked, confused.

"What do you want your shirt to say?"

"Um…four eyes." It was the only other thing he could think of. He'd been wearing glasses since before the accident and he often wished he could wake up in the morning seeing the world clearly. They were a hassle, sometimes, and getting them flushed down the toilet was no fun.

People usually focused on the chair and that was what he was the most self conscious of.

Tina nodded and began working on it, "So…how are things with you and Brittany?"

"Oh…good. Good. You and Mike?"

She nodded, looking down at the shirt, "Yeah, we're good too."

"You seemed upset the other day," Artie replied, "after Glee club. When he called you a self hating Asian."

She shrugged, "I guess so. It's just…the Asian thing. I don't have many people to look up to. I mean…there's Sandra Oh…but who else? My idols are Lady GaGa and Britney Spears. She even wear blue contacts! Why can't I be like that?"

He chuckled, "You always were a little fashion queen."

She smiled before saying, "Mike...he means well. He wants me to be more proud of my heritage, I guess. But I don't want to be too Asian, you know? I've felt that way lately."

"It doesn't have to be like that. You don't have to limit yourself to being like someone else. Or looking up to someone to make yourself feel better about yourself. Or even being what someone else wants you to be. You can _be the change you want to see in the world_."

"Did you come up with that?" she asked.

"I wish," he replied, "Gandhi."

When Tina said that Gandi's words were her new motto the next day, Artie couldn't help but smile.

Later that week, Tina snuck into the choir room after everyone had gone home and printed herself a new shirt and slipped a discarded shirt into Artie's locker. When he found it the next morning, he knew what to do, but he didn't immediately act on it.

And Tina, it turns out, didn't either. She put the new shirt on the top shelf of her locker and changed into the original one she had made, the one that declared her insecurity of her brown eyes, and performed Born This Way. It was one of her biggest and most important solos of the year and she performed with pride and excitement, but she couldn't help but think about the shirt in her locker, the one that declared her biggest insecurity of them all.

The next day, Friday, Artie was wearing a zipped up sweatshirt with a t-shirt underneath it. As it was Friday, the assignment of acceptance was pretty much over, but he thought that for himself, it wasn't quite finished yet.

"Mr. Schue?" he asked. His teacher turned toward the class with a raised eyebrow, "I don't have a song…but I have something I want to share for this week's assignment."

"Go ahead, Artie," Mr. Schue said, sitting down in empty chair as Artie wheeled to the front of the class. He took a deep breath before unzipping his sweatshirt and revealing the single word on his shirt with a quiet gasp from his fellow glee clubbers.

_ Cripple. _

He closed in his eyes in preparation for laughter or sympathetic words with stares of shock, but his ears were met with clapping.

And when he opened his eyes, Tina was looking away from him, down at her feet.

Artie spent the rest of the day without his sweatshirt on, with cripple splashed across his chest as he went through his day. And that was the first day ever that no one called him what he was declaring since he had started high school. The bullies didn't have any other material.

Even though he wasn't born with his disability, there was a certain comfort that he know felt for saying to the world that he was insecure about it, that he was aware of it.

After school that day, Brittany gave him a kiss on the cheek before she left him to load his books into his backpack. They'd meet for a latte later, but for now, he was enjoying the peacefulness of the empty hallways.

He was in his own world when Tina came up to him. He was about to open his mouth when, without a word, Tina unbuttoned her shirt and revealed the white t-shirt underneath. And in the bold, black letters, she revealed to him and only him what she had been insecure about all along:

_Too Asian. _


End file.
